


A Certain Lack of Decorum

by Makioka



Category: Return to Night - Mary Renault
Genre: (non-consummated), Accidental Incest, F/M, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-05
Updated: 2015-04-05
Packaged: 2018-03-21 10:28:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3688809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Makioka/pseuds/Makioka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>She is my mother and the changing moons</i><br/>My brethren, and with them I wax and wane.<br/>Thus sprung why should I fear to trace my birth?<br/>Nothing can make me other than I am.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>- Oedipus the King</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Certain Lack of Decorum

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Naraht](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naraht/gifts).



Julian set down the case, and took a sober look around the room again. It was smaller than he’d thought it would be, smaller than the management had made it sound when they’d assured him the landlady was fond of theatre types. On the other hand, it was also rather empty, a state of affairs he preferred to the thought of the usual hand-me-downs of casual lodging that Hilary had warned him he might come across. _I could tell you stories about what I’ve found in cupboards, Julian_. He thrust away the thought of her, unbelieving as of yet that they would be separated for so long. He had begged, persuasively as he had thought, for her to come with him, if only for the beginning of the tour, a week even, no more, and she had laughed and kissed him fondly as always and volunteered no real answer bar that the surgery needed her.

 

He had felt obscurely thrust from her, held off as though he wasn’t her husband at all, as though he was some stranger she offered weak excuses to. Always the surgery and the myriad of things he couldn’t touch and that she wouldn’t explain, mysterious paraphenalia that he resented in some fashion he couldn’t name. When he had voiced the possibility of her coming with him, keeping as much of the pleading from his voice as he could - _infantile_  a hard clear voice had said inside him, a cool measured dismissal of everything he felt, a prickled burr caught and rubbed against his skin - she had brushed back the smooth curl of her hair and explained clearly why she couldn’t.

 

He hadn’t invited her back to this room, and she hadn’t asked to come. They’d said their goodbyes in Claridges, first at the tea table, and then, in the relative privacy and darkness of the cloakroom they’d snatched an even hastier final goodbye - echoed with a kiss, their farewell of the night before. It hadn’t seemed final until he’d seen her into a taxi, the dull, green shimmer of her spring jacket disappearing into the murky approach to dusk, his last impression the blur of her pale face through the window, turned back towards him as though she was watching him recede. He’d stood there longer than he’d meant to, until the slush of the street penetrated at last. She’d come to London at least to see him off, even if Mrs Fawcett was taking a turn for pneumonia.

 

It was London for two days, then the States, he was a rather last minute company addition, but the parts were congenial, the producer a friend, it would be a good turn done each way. This trip provided as well a chance to set aside the letter that’d come, with the brief invitation to screen test - with the entirely serviceable excuse that he would be gone for too long to be a contender. His trunk had gone with the rest; he would make do with what he had brought with him, and motivated by Hilary’s admonition, he opened the case, and shook out the clothes as she’d shown him, neat packing tricks unfolding, and opened the wardrobe, hanging them up, though his natural inclination was to leave them packed. Bolstered by sudden impulse, conscious of the slow flush of his face even though he was alone, he brought the shirt Hilary had smoothed out to his face as though he could smell the trace of her scent. It smelled like clean linen only, and conscious of a vague humiliation, he put it from him. This wasn’t the first time they’d been separated - he tried not to think of the war very much - but it was the first time since he’d returned.

 

Later that evening, ear pressed to the telephone downstairs, he waited for the long slow rings after connection, a forced patience, the landlady passing to and fro, too many times to be entirely accidental, a faint air of preoccupation assumed to cover her tracks. He had almost given up hope of Hilary answering when she was there, voice tinny down the line, striking a sharp pang of longing from him, tinder put to flint. He barely knew what he was saying, short banalities that invited no answer, although he had phoned to hear her voice. The words forced their way from him, as though if he didn’t speak silence would fill the spaces between them, a greater separation from distance. Finally, she cut in.

 

“I miss you already, darling. You do know that, don’t you?”

 

He hadn’t, and her assurance soothed the clench of the fear in his stomach a little. “Of course I do,” he said, voice deliberately light and teasing. “You need someone who knows how to make a good cup of tea.”

 

He could hear her smile without needing to see it, closing his eyes to picture it better. “I won’t tell Emma you said that.”

 

“Good God no,” he said, and his dismay was only half-feigned. He’d never quite got over his mother’s injunctions regarding maids, and Emma put the fear into him more than he cared to admit, barely trained, taken into service because she could find work nowhere else, and still the only help they’d been able to find.

 

“Or that,” Hilary said, and she was laughing then, a breathed out chuckle.

 

“I miss you as well,” he said finally, noticing the hem of his landlady’s skirt making its way back across his vision from kitchen to parlour. Why on earth had he thought to get used to boarding out, starting tonight when he could have been somewhere half decent, a last night of comfort in a hotel before he would be obliged to spend the next few weeks with strangers he knew not at all.

 

“Don’t think about it too much. There’s telephones and if all else fails, the postal service will give you your stamps worth. I really do have to go though. There’s no rest for the wicked.”

 

“Of course,” he said, automatic politeness rising to fill the gap where he faltered. He wanted with every fibre of him to say how much he loved her, but the blasted hem whisking past the door, the heavy polish in the air, the sudden utter misery he felt, clogged his throat, and he barely managed to stumble out.

 

He was retreating back upstairs when the landlady accosted him. “Mr Fleming,” she said with a smile that - remembering the wayward skirt - irrationally irritated him, the hard loss of Hilary already shredding his nerves. “Mr Shelbourne left a message for you. Mr Becque staying here is a member of the company as well, a Canadian gentleman also. You’re welcome to chat in the parlour if you would like.” Her voice implied there was little he should like better than that honour.

 

“Perhaps tomorrow,” he said with a smile. It was on Shelbourne’s advice that he was staying here at all, a decision he regretted more as each minute passed. To spend the evening making small talk with some other actor whom his imagination painted with ease as the sort of washed-up has-been that generally frequented these places was more than he could bear.

 

“Wise decision, spend no more time in a parlour than you must,” came a voice from the stairs. A gentleman, obviously on his way out, nodded to them both as he took the last two steps at a brisk pace. “Fleming, isn’t it? Shelbourne told me to look out for you. Come to dinner.” When Julian made to protest, he added, “I insist,” as though the objection had been to the location of their meeting, not the acquaintance.

 

Caught, Julian hesitated and was lost, the moment he could have declined fast receding. As gracefully as he could, he acceded, disliking the casually superior manner the other man had taken, dismayed at the speed of the invitation but at least a little grateful to escape the threatened parlour. Clearly they did things differently - though he wasn’t sure if that was touring company members or Canadians.

 

Becque set a fast pace, informing Julian that he knew just the location. This proved to be the truth when he unearthed a restaurant where Julian would never have even suspected habitation, and spoke to the maitre d’ in careless French. Julian more than suspected that the man in question had never spoken a word of the language in his life, judging from the hunted expression on his face.

 

He hadn’t yet seen the face of the man who had brought him this far, but now the light of the room fell on it, he felt a shocking instinctive shiver of recognition run through him, strong enough that he felt the slow shudder start working its way through his body that he hadn’t felt in months, the dissonance of something _wrong_. He gritted his teeth, bit at the softness of his tongue, let the sharpness of that pain remind him to stay in the moment. Already, the first instant shock had faded, and he clasped his hands under the table as casually as he could to still the tremors that threatened to make an appearance.

 

_I know you,_  he thought numbly, as though from a distance. The other man was placid though, staring at Julian with interest but it seemed no recognition. _I know you_. The first clarion call of enlightenment failed to give details from where though, and Julian couldn’t think where he could possibly have met the man. He was in his early fifties perhaps, but a remarkably well-preserved fifties that could easily be taken for younger unless one had Julian’s eye. He had the sort of tanned solid look Julian associated with Americans in general, the face well-cut and immensely mobile, the cheekbones high and solid, lending gravity to the otherwise weaker chin, the eyes clear and grey, fringed with dark lashes. There was a vitalness to him that Julian coolly set aside as the projection of a rather good actor, though how he could have known it was a lie, he wasn’t entirely sure, only that the falseness ran through him - not malicious but ingrained.

 

“Are you in England much?” he got out at last, blindly unaware of anything around him - room, food, the few other diners.

 

“This is the first time actually,” Becque returned. “It’s rather a long story as to why I stayed with Shelbourne on the crossing instead of joining the company on the other side.” He paused a moment as though giving Julian a chance to inquire. When Julian declined to, he continued. “Born and bred here yourself, I take it?”

 

There was a look in his eyes that Julian half-recognised but thrust aside. While he had been taking his stock of Becque, the attention had clearly been returned and the verdict was not unfavourable, it seemed.

 

“You’re right,” he said, and wished like hell that he was anywhere else, the movement of Becque’s eyes on him repulsive and yet edged with fascination. He’d felt faint boredom, sometimes a little uneasy with the attempts of men over the years, had wondered if there was some quality in him that invited it,  but only Hilary’s touch had roused him to responsiveness, only Hilary had ever made him want the same way people who accosted him seemed to want. He wasn’t sure what the churning sensation in his stomach was, nothing close to arousal, but the opposite of indifference, a sensation that alarmed. “Gloucestershire, actually,” he replied, though he didn’t expect that to ring any bell.

 

He wasn’t entirely right. Becque’s face closed off a little, as though he was thinking of something else entirely. “A lovely part of the world I hear.” The inhibition cleared from his face, replaced by a one-sided smile, as though he was consciously focused on being charming now. “I’m surprised you left,” he added, and reluctantly, Julian felt the pull of Becque’s warmth despite everything.

 

“You have to work,” he said with a shrug that conveyed as much as he intended it to.

 

Becque’s smile widened at that, and if the resultant conversation was more of a monologue, it was an interesting one, the experience of an old hand telling a younger one all the stories that everyone else had heard too many times before to be interested in. Julian listened and contributed his own mite of conversation from time to time, ate the awful food without a blink, rationing still playing merry hell, the soggy peas and the miniscule scrap of meat almost as terrible tasting as they looked. A few words, a discreet tip had secured the worst wine he’d ever tasted, and he thought with amusement of how much Hilary would have hated the whole evening. He knew without considering it what she would have thought of Becque, of the flaunting familiarity he’d assumed in moments, the manners of a younger man, the conscious effort of his charm. Thought how she’d laugh when he told her about this, the next time they were together.

 

“Have you ever considered the movies?” Becque asked, after he’d told Julian more than he’d wanted to know about the state of the Canadian theatre scene (poor) and the effect of the war (large).

 

“Briefly,” Julian said. The wine was as strong as it was bad though, and he didn’t drink often, so he found himself elaborating. “It’s so different from theatre. It’s not something I have any yearning for.”

 

“You could you know, with your face,” he replied, and the trite embarrassing compliment seemed to sit there awkwardly between them, a misjudged step, unlike any of the smooth movements Becque had made so far. “I mean,” he elaborated with speed, “there’s always a call for interesting young people in Hollywood and Shelbourne said you had good grounding.” His swift reversion to avuncular advice was only momentary though, unsustainable it seemed to Julian who watched with interest, the rapid interchange, one scene swiftly following another.

 

“Have you worked for them?” Julian asked with more politeness than genuineness. The nagging familiarity had not subsided, but it was a puzzle that seemed unlikely to be solved, and he was tired.

 

“I have,” Becque said, and listed off a couple of names of pictures Julian had never seen. “I decided that like you, I prefer the theatre. So much more connection with the audience. I still have contacts though of course - always leave a door open.” Julian felt what could have been an accidental nudge of a foot - it was swiftly withdrawn and could be excused by the cramped accommodation, but it had certainly happened, and he felt an incredulous smile attempt to fight its way to his face.

 

He considered himself too old to play the ingenue, but this opinion it seemed wasn’t shared by his dining partner. He had to consider that perhaps the war hadn’t marked itself as clearly on his face as he had thought. Hilary, bless her, insisted he had barely aged a day, a conceit he shrugged off, but that might be more truth than compliment. He wasn’t flattered though, had never been by anyone who thought they could offer a favour in return for something he had no interest in giving. He hadn’t at school, at Oxford, and not at war.

 

“Very wise,” he said in answer and made the obligatory movements preparatory to going, laid down the money with a nod for the waiter, who had been eyeing the two of them with interest for the last half hour.

 

Becque was slower to move, looked at Julian again in silence for long seconds. “You remind me of someone,” he said abruptly. “Only I have no idea who it could be.” Finally, he stood and collected his hat and coat, and departed alongside Julian, walking slower than he had on the journey there as if in thought, the silence between them alarmingly more intimate than any amount of talk, as though it could be expected or accepted that it would be comfortable.

 

Julian felt his thoughts return to Hilary as they so often did. She had obliquely, it was true, as subtly as it was possible for her to do, reminded him that over such a long amount of time, she did not consider it impossible that he would be interested in someone else. He had greeted the notion with the same amount of bewilderment that he’d have greeted a trip to the moon - they were equally impossible, equally unthought of, though he thought he’d never quite convinced Hilary of that certainty.

 

At his own door, he hesitated, and in hesitating was lost. Becque’s door was opposite his own, and he held the door casually open. “Come in for another cigarette?”

 

As though compelled by something outside of himself, Julian stepped in, the old surge of complete conviction in the knowledge that he knew this man sweeping through him, forcing him to greater acquaintance, demanding the secret be revealed, a stronger urge than any that had ever motivated him before, bar only the certainty that he must be Hilary’s.

 

Julian had expected a pass, had been certain in fact that it would happen after the tone of the offer of a cigarette - had known his answering awareness had been seen, the other man honed to awareness in small signals by need. He had expected it though after the cigarette and the obligatory offer of the drink that men of Becque’s type kept in their rooms, had perhaps vaguely hoped that in the harsher light of the room the secret of that bewildering familiarity would be known, or that the other man would on reflection pounce upon the answer. Julian had not expected it to be so fast. With the swiftness of caress that he best remembered from that clumsy attempt at school, Becque was on him as Julian fumbled in his pocket for a lighter no longer there.

 

They were of a height, Becque broader in the shoulders and with the advantage of intent, Julian laid still not merely by surprise, but the echoed memory of sudden swift movements and the danger brought with them, as though still the squeal and whistle of sudden armament was there, a slowness of reflex and action after war, that had never been present during it, that he was at a loss to account for. He let himself be kissed for a moment from shock, felt the barely veiled hunger of the other man envelop him, the dry push of his lips, the heaviness of his hand on Julian’s shoulder, tightening there as though it was unconscious. Felt the moment’s shock taken as acquiescence on his part as Becque crushed him closer, before Julian broke away, breathing hard and fast, more as though he’d run a race than endured a kiss.

 

“I need to go,” he said numbly, the first thing that came to mind as he groped uselessly in his pocket still. “I left my lighter.” He backed towards the door and out, took in the resigned look on Becque’s face. Made some excuse to the landlady about leaving his wallet out and received her cheerful assent to opening the door when he returned. For the lack of anything better to do, he retraced the path back to the restaurant, and caught the waiter, whose now broad East End accent confirmed Julian’s initial suspicion as to his French. “I left a lighter here,” he said, trying to smile. “Would you mind awfully looking to see if it’s still here? It was a gift.”

 

That at least was true - Hilary had given it to him, and everything she gave was a gift. He wiped uselessly at his mouth, taken aback yet again by the stupidity of the whole affair, the clumsy seduction, the impossible answer, the lurching sickness in his gut. The whole evening seemed surreal, almost unhinged, like a dark imagining - not ten hours away from Hilary and it had unfolded like this.

 

“Of course, sir,” the waiter said. “You were here with your father at table number three, weren’t you?”

 

Julian had first hand experience with drowning, the blocking out of all sound and vision, the sinking into the oldest darkness, the filling up of his lungs, the wrenching impossibility of that return to life from oblivion. He felt it again, the swimming tilting sensation of air rationed, life shortened to seconds. Quite naturally, independently of himself, he asked, “How did you know?”

 

“Why, you look so alike of course,” the waiter said, as though he considered Julian to be rather slow. “Could see it as soon as you came in.”

 

“You’re right,” Julian said, and was fairly certain he smiled. He didn’t think to dispute it. Now that he knew, it was so self evident. The waiter returned with the cigarette lighter and Julian tipped him absently, and on the walk home, considered throwing himself in front of a car. The consideration of Hilary stopped him from carrying it out, but then made it all worse, at the horror that filled him, that blocked out all sensation, all thought bar it, all feeling, that he knew his father now and what Hilary would say, if she ever knew how.

 

He remembered not a moment more of that walk back, except that his mouth was dry and sore by the time he returned. His father. Christ, his father. And he hadn’t known. Julian at least could credit himself with no attraction, nothing but the seething curiosity that he now knew the origins of, but the same could not be said of Becque. He could taste the thin bitterness of bile in his mouth now, the involuntary spasm of his stomach. With desperate eagerness he clutched at that thin straw. His father was Andre O’Connell, not Becque. It was a terrible mistake. It was a mistake.

 

Becque was waiting for him at the top of the stairs, something Julian had expected. His face looked older, more worn, and his face was flushed. He smelt a little of whisky, as though he’d fortified himself against this meeting, back against the door as though to assure Julian he wouldn’t touch. Now that he knew, Julian could trace the resemblance, the features that might be his in a couple of decades. “I got the lighter,” he said, and fumbled for his door handle.

 

Becque put out a pleading hand. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I have no idea what got into me. You have to believe I never do this.”

 

Curiously, Julian did believe him. The seduction attempt had been clumsy, the compliments farcical, Julian had followed him in because he was drawn to something he could not understand. He wondered if Becque had just not understood what he was feeling. With a calculation that surprised even himself, he made a last, desperate attempt to save them both. “I don’t even know your name,” he said, with a tolerable attempt at bewildering naivety, a young man accosted for the first time, shocked and afraid of the possibility extended.

 

“Andre,” Andre replied. “O’Connell as it happens, but Becque sounds better for the stage.” Julian felt the blackness rushing up behind his eyes again.

 

“I’m sorry myself,” he replied. “I...I misunderstood.” And with a great effort, he put the door between them, sank down to sit on the floor and tried not to think at all.

 

He could not consider what they had done, had to think instead with a sob caught in his throat, of his mother, justified - his father a failure indeed, a third-rate actor taking bit parts where he could, seeking solace in those young enough to be his children. He could believe he was the first man, he knew for certain he was not be the first. He breathed in deep in the way Hilary had taught him, in those first nightmare weeks after he’d been returned home from injury, struggled for air, gasped it in alongside all the unwelcome truths.

 

He couldn’t pull out of the production. It was impossible even to think of - he had been a last resort as it was. The idea of revelation seemed obscene, impossible, yet surely it was impossible to keep secret, it must be.

 

Gradually, after all the rest, after Julian had been worn down from tiredness, from grief, anger and the debilitating horror of circumstance, his course of action revealed itself. It was impossible of course to contemplate, but he had been given an opportunity to know his father, to know him unawares, to trace the pitiful state of the man who’d betrayed his mother. It would save them all, if Julian never told his father what he knew. Any further passes would be unlikely, and he was certain if they materialised that he could avoid them with ease. Step by step, argument by argument, he insisted and convinced himself that it would be possible. It wasn’t quite ‘the show must go on,’ but it was close enough to count.

 

 


End file.
